Circle

A derived set of members reachable from a given member through shared private community co-membership. Circles are computed by traversal; they are not stored as tables and are not manually managed by members.

Depth labels:

• inner circle — depth 1: members sharing a private community directly
• trusted — BFS depth 2: inner circle members' inner circle
• extended — BFS depth 3: trusted members' inner circle

Allowed:

• inner circle
• trusted
• extended
• discovery graph (the full traversal structure across all depths)
• circle depth

Forbidden:

• social circle (ambiguous; use "inner circle" for depth 1)
• followers, following (removed; not the model)
• friends (not the model)
• network (too generic)
• circle as a stored entity (the social_circles and social_circle_memberships tables were dropped in migration 004)

Notes:

• The mechanism that creates circle bonds is private community co-membership.
• Public communities and public events do not affect circle membership.
• Private event co-participation is not part of the current circle contract.
• Use "discovery graph" when referring to the full traversal structure. Use depth labels (inner, trusted, extended) when referring to specific scopes.
• In UI copy, the navigation tabs should be: Inner / Trusted / Extended / All.

Related:

• community (private)
• relationship
• discovery
• visibility